By Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos
Malacañang has attributed the big 15-point jump in the trust rating of President Duterte in the latest Social Weather Stations survey to the liberation of Marawi City from the Maute Group after a five-month siege last year.
The nationwide 2017 fourth quarter survey conducted from Dec. 8 to 16 with 1,200 respondents showed that Duterte regained his excellent trust rating.
Eighty-three percent had much trust in the Chief Executive, only seven percent had little trust, while another 10 percent were undecided, for a net trust rating of 75 percent, which is classified as “excellent,” and 15 points up from the previous quarter’s “very high” rating of 60 percent.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, in a press briefing in Valencia City, Bukidnon yesterday, noted that the rating shows high public satisfaction with the performance of the President across all socio-economic classes on all education levels in both urban and rural areas.
Roque assured that even with the excellent rating, Duterte will not be complacent.
“We therefore assure everyone that the Chief Executive, along with his team, will remain undistracted in improving the lives of the poor and marginalized, fighting criminality and enforcing the law, and curbing graft and corruption in government,” he said.
According to Roque, the government’s success in winning over the Islamic State-inspired terrorists in Marawi was likely one of the factors that helped Duterte regain his rating.
“I think the fact that he has shown that he can exercise political will to defeat terrorists and violent extremist in Marawi; the fact that people’s optimism is at all-time high; the fact that manufacturing output is at all-time high.
So all this indicate that the economy is growing as his promised,” the Palace official explained.
Earlier this week, Malacañang rejoiced when a separate SWS survey showed that 70 percent of 1,200 respondents believe that Duterte is better than his predecessor President Benigno S. Aquino III.
In the survey, 22 percent said the two Presidents are just the same when it comes to their performance. Eight percent said Aquino was better than Duterte.
“I think that survey already proves what we already know as a fact,” Roque said.